• PC World
• » Tech Industry

If you use Metricom's Ricochet service to access the wireless Web, you soon will need to look for a new way to get connected. The high-speed wireless data services company will close the Ricochet network in all of its 15 markets on Wednesday, August 8.

Subscribers will be able to retrieve their e-mail via Ricochet up to that time, Metricom says.

The company released the news in a statement on Friday, and also announced it has immediately terminated 282 of its staff.

Metricom says it had 34,500 subscribers in the middle of July. The service was available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C, and 15 airports around the United States.

Metricom filed for bankruptcy protection in early July but at that time said it planned to keep subscribers to the Ricochet service connected during reorganization. Instead, it will now sell off its assets by auction on August 16 and complete its liquidation by October, according to the statement.

Metricom promised a connection speed of 128 kilobits per second and occasionally delivered speeds up to 460 kbps, users reported. But it ran into financial trouble earlier this year. The company had 800 employees at its peak.

• See more like this:
• Metricom,
• Ricochet,
• wireless,
• Web,
• network,
• e-mail